THE GHOST IN THE GARDEN.
The place selected in which to keep my watch had, I imagine, been
intended by the builder for a coal-cellar; but from the fact that the
walls of thick cement were set around with shelves, partitioned into
squares, I concluded that some subsequent tenant had seen fit to turn
it into a wine-cellar. One entered from the garden, and passing down
a few stone steps, came to a wooden door like that of a coal-cellar
or tool-house, opening upon a short passage, the walls of which were
evenly cemented. At the end of this passage another door--of iron this
time, and fitted with a patent lock--had been added; and, as it did
not seem likely that anyone would trouble to protect garden tools or
coals by the addition of an extra door, such as one sees in a strong
room or on a safe, the presumption was, as I say, that the place had
been intended for the storage or the laying down of wine. But whatever
its purpose, it made a serviceable sentry-box, for by leaving the two
doors open I could command a view of the garden. Seeing by the light of
a vesta, which I struck on entering, that a naked gas-jet was fixed to
the wall, and finding that the gas was laid on, I lit it for a moment
or two while I had time to look round. Had I chosen to keep the inner
door shut, I could have left the light burning all night, and with no
fear of its gleam being seen from outside. But in that case I could not
have kept the necessary eye upon the garden; so, after I had turned an
empty champagne case into a somewhat uneasy and uncomfortable seat, I
put out the light, and, opening both doors wide, sat down to commence
my watch.
* * * * *
One!
Two!
Three!
"Three o'clock and a wet night!" I said to myself, yawning wearily.
"The policeman, whom I've just heard pass, isn't likely to get wet
feet, judging by the thickness of the boots he's wearing. I wonder how
he manages to walk like that? One might think he did it purposely, to
warn the gentle burglar to lie low while law-and-order is passing.
First of all comes his heel with a _flick_, and then the flat of his
foot with a _flack_, like the double beat of a flail. _Flick-flack,
flick-flack, flick-flack!_
"But perhaps I'm blaming the poor man without a cause. It may be that
it is only because we hear the policeman's tramp, sounding and echoing
on an empty pavement, that we think it peculiar; and possibly my own
footfalls could as readily be recognised were they heard at night, when
other sounds are still.
"Now he's stopped. Trying a door or window perhaps. Now he's on the
move again. _Flick-flack, flick-flack, flick-flack!_ It seems to me
that, listening here as I am, I could locate his whereabouts all down
the street. All down the street, did I say? Yes, and down the next
street, and the street after that, if one wished to do so. I'm sure I
don't. All I want now is to see this thing through, and to get home to
a cold bath and a bed. And it won't be long now, for very likely that
is Robert's last beat down this way for the night--or, rather, for the
morning.
"Was that something stirring at the end of the garden? Another cat,
I expect. How that other brute made me jump--creeping in upon me so
stealthily that I didn't know it was there, till I saw its horrible
eyes, glaring at me like a ghost out of the dark!
"Here's another yawn coming. Y-a-a-a-a-ow!
"There's another yawn gone, and I seem to see quite a procession of
yawns looming up before me. What a queer place it is--this thread of
territory, which I call 'Half-Awake-Land'! It's a sort of boundary
line--no more--between Dream-Land and Waking-Land, and as one can't
stand on a boundary line, any more than one can stand on a stretched
thread, I keep tumbling in and out, first into Dream-Land and then into
Waking-Land all the time. One of the funny things about Half-Awake-Land
is that all one's thoughts turn into pictures.
"When I yawned a few minutes ago, I said to myself that I saw 'quite
a procession of yawns looming up before me,' and then, as I say, my
thoughts turned into pictures, and the earth, as far as ever I could
see, seemed to have as many cracks or crevasses in it as a newly
ploughed field has furrows. As I looked each crack yawned open, like
the huge mouth of some rude person who gapes in your face, without
having the decency even to gape behind his hand, so that the world
seemed to wrinkle away to the horizon's edge in a thousand opened
mouths.
"Then all of a sudden I saw a great Sleep-Sea in front of me. All the
waves upon it were yawns, and they came rolling in upon me, one after
the other, till I feared I was going to be carried off my feet by a
bigger yawn than any of the others, and so washed away and drowned.
"What a farrago of nonsense, half-soliloquy, half sleep-talking, I've
been thinking or speaking--I hardly know which. Hullo! Nodding again!
This won't do! If it hadn't been that I'm sitting up, instead of lying
down, I should have dropped right off to sleep that time. I was nearly
off my seat, as it was. It was the forward lurching of my head and body
which woke me, and the jerk seemed sharp enough to snap one's backbone
at the neck, not to speak of making one's heart jump inside one, like a
frightened frog. What tricks one's brain plays in a moment's snatched
sleep! Three seconds ago I was awake and talking about one's thoughts
turning into pictures when one is half-awake and half-asleep. After
that I reminded myself that I must keep awake, lest the Dumpling should
steal in upon me unawares. Then I suppose that for a second's space I
dropped off; and again the thought turned into a picture in my brain.
I was sitting, just as I am now, looking at the incandescent burner of
that lamp-post in the side street to the right of the garden. And that
reminds me. It's a strong light, and if I don't get a little farther
back it is just possible that I might be seen by anybody who looked
over the wall at the garden's end. That's better! No one could see me
here; I'm well in the shadow. Yes, I was sitting here, blinking, as I
say, at the incandescent light on the lamp-post, and as I sat I saw
a black object, like the crouched figure of a man, creeping along in
the shadow of the wall. It was the over-wrought brain playing tricks
again--projecting out of itself the picture of the person of whom one
had been thinking, so that one could easily believe that what one saw
was the actual flesh-and-blood person himself. I'm morally sure I shall
fall asleep in dead earnest if I sit here any longer. I think I'll
steal outside for a moment or two, if only to stretch my legs, and to
shake off the drowsiness which is coming over me."
Very lightly and on tip-toe I crept out--to receive a sudden,
sickening, crushing blow, which brought me blinded, and with the blood
running down into my eyes and mouth, to my knees.